


If life ain't just a joke, then why are we laughing?

by disenchantedkobrakid



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Death, Everyone is Dead, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchantedkobrakid/pseuds/disenchantedkobrakid
Summary: Pete and Mikey have been friends since they were little boys not realizing that they've become more than friends at some point.And then it's all too late because this life just hates Mikey Way and Pete Wentz.





	If life ain't just a joke, then why are we laughing?

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've had this idea and I just had to implement it. But basically it turned out much, much darker than I had intended and now it's probably the most depressing thing I've ever written.  
I'd say enjoy reading but I don't think that you can!  
Kudos are much greatly appreciated anyways!
> 
> Disclaimer: I've literally just finished that like ten minutes ago and I haven't read it a second time so I don't even know what I'm doing here.

Let’s start on a random day in February where Mikey entered the apartment after a long day. The only thing he wanted to do was crash on the couch and lay there until he maybe would just die. That would’ve been an appealing thing to think of. The blonde guy took off his coat and sighed standing in the hallway indecisively because it was way too quiet in the apartment. And Pete usually wasn’t the quiet type of guy. He only was when he was having one of his episodes.  
Mikey dropped his way too heavy bag and desperately started to search for his roommate and friend for years. He wasn’t in his bedroom and neither was he in Mikey’s – but honestly, why would Pete be there? -, he wasn’t in the kitchen and he wasn’t in the living room. That left only one place. Mikey practically ran to the bathroom finding the door closed when he eventually reached it. Of course his roommate would be smart enough to lock up.  
And in this moment it didn’t matter that they had only rented the apartment and that it would be extremely expensive if they had to replace a broken door. Nothing mattered expect Pete who was in there in whatever state. Mikey’s breath got heavy and he started to sweat and then he finally did what he had always wanted to do – what every little boy had always wanted to do after seeing all those cool police investigation-movies.  
Mikey heaved up his leg and tried to kick in the door eventually realizing that this wasn’t as easy as it always looked like. Stupid movies. They never told one the truth about anything. Mikey needed a few seconds to realize that there was actually a second key of the bathroom – one that he had separately got made for a situation like that. He ran to the kitchen, opened the drawer with the cutlery and then grabbed it from behind the forks. What a good place to hide something.  
It wasn’t that Mikey Way didn’t trust Pete Wentz whom he had known almost his whole life. No, he did trust him but he just didn’t trust him in some situations. Pete had done too much that had made Mikey doubt many of his decisions and for some reasons the younger guy just knew that whatever Pete had done then, it was one of the worst.  
With shaking hands Mikey inserted the key into the hole and eventually turned it around. And then he opened the door which squeaked in protest as if even the fucking door didn’t want Mikey to enter the room. It was dark in there. The light of a street lamp on the outside brought a little bit light into the room but no lamps were on inside of the room.  
Mikey was able to recognize that Pete was laying in the bathtub and it shouldn’t have been a suspicious thing but for some reason it made the blonde guy freak out even more. Way too quiet. It was way too fucking quiet even for a normal person. Mikey quickly actuated the light switch and then he saw the other guy concretely.  
From afar one could’ve thought that it was just a random guy laying in a bathtub but Mikey knew better. He approached his yearlong-friend but the latter didn’t move. His eyes were closed and for one second Mikey had the hope that he was just asleep even though he actually knew better. Oh, he had already known when he had entered the apartment. There was no way to fool anyone there.  
Pete didn’t move and didn’t move and didn’t move and Mikey just stood there turned into a pillar of salt until he was finally able to move again. He touched his friend’s wrist and put his hand in front of his mouth to test even though he already knew. The reality was ugly and sad but that was how it was. The reality. As said before. There was no way that anyone could’d been fooled there. Not anymore.

Let’s skip to the time where everything was still okay. Let’s skip to this day more than ten years ago where Mikey and Pete had both been normal teenagers. As normal as one could be with a dead mother and an alcoholic father. Anyways. Let’s just skip there.  
Mikey and Pete were sitting on the latter’s bed in this house he only felt safe in when he was with Mikey. And Mikey knew that. Of course he did because they were best friends. They knew everything about each other.  
They had talked and talked and talked. They had talked for hours like they were doing so often. They actually were talking so much with each other that everyone laughed them off as girls. Why weren’t boys allowed to talk much with each other?  
Mikey was talking about some new music he had recently discovered and Pete was hanging on his every word like he usually did. Everything was completely normal. Nothing unusual. And then Pete did something that wasn’t so usual for them. Actually, it was the complete opposite of what they usually considered as normal or usual. What was normal anyways?  
Let’s go back to what Pete did. Pete Wentz kissed Mikey Way with such an intensity that both of them were barely able to breathe. And then Mikey kissed back and they couldn’t get enough from the other person. And that was how it all began. Or maybe how it all ended? Who knew? See it as you like.  
There we had Mikey and Pete kissing each other while they had both wanted it. They had both wanted it for a long time and then Pete had finally done the first step. And everything was fine. Everything was actually perfect because there was no rejection. No, both wanted it and everything was great. And then they never did it again.

But enough of that. Let’s just skip to a point a few years later where that kissing incident had long been forgotten by Mikey as well as Pete. Or that was what they were pretending. Pete and Mikey were now both at the university but neither of them felt like they actually belonged there. Both wanted to quit but both didn’t know what else to do with their lives. Well, that was kind of tragic.  
So they just stayed in university and they were doing fine. They were studying, they were attending the dormitory parties, they were drinking lots and lots of alcohol and maybe there were also some drugs sometimes. Just maybe. They were doing everything that normal students were doing too. Because, well, they were normal. As normal as one could be with a dead mother and an alcoholic father. Anyways.  
But then Mikey and Pete did something that wasn’t so normal for most people. Normal is such a shitty, subjective word but most people at least wouldn’t consider what they did normal. Because one evening or rather one night when both Mikey and Pete were so fucking wasted they did what they had done years ago again. Expect this time it was Mikey who initiated the kiss. Not that Pete had complained though. No, it was rather the opposite.  
They were kissing each other in front of all these people but neither of them cared because, well, they were just two drunk dudes who would either laugh about what they had done the day before the next day or who would ignore each other for the rest of their lives. That was how it was working, no in between. Mikey and Pete were kissing each other like they had years ago and one could now wonder if they were actually realizing what they were doing and if they remembered the incident from years ago. Well, that was something we would never know.

Let’s skip to the day after their second kiss where Mikey and Pete woke up next to each other both feeling like shit. Let’s talk about how Pete immediately ran to the bathroom to puke his guts out as if this was his reaction to what had happened the day before. And let’s look at Mikey who was laying on the sofa confused because he couldn’t remember what had happened the day before.  
Let’s talk about the fact that Pete had never told his best friend about the night and that never had never been able to remember it. The amnesia had taken something from him that could’ve changed everything. But well, what wasn’t there couldn’t be taken. Maybe that was what Pete had though too.  
So the day after this party both Pete and Mikey go back to the university studying something they don’t actually care about. It could be mentioned what it had been but it didn’t matter at this point. They continued to be friends so it certainly was one of these situations where the reader of the story would just shake their head because of how stupid it was that they didn’t realize that they could’ve been so much more than just that – friends. That’s probably what you’re doing right now – shaking you head – because it really was so stupid. But everything is really.

Let’s skip the next few months and jump to the day where both Pete and Mikey decided to drop out of university. They had both passed all of their first exams but they had ultimately decided that there had to be more in life. Because there had to be, right?  
So. They just stopped going to university and finally started to do what they really loved and it was great. They played in several bands – none of them actually mentionable today – but well, they had enough to survive and they were happy. And happiness was certainly more important than all the money in the world.  
Let’s talk about the day where Pete had played in front of roughly 500 people which would be his biggest crowd ever. Mikey had watched from the side because, why not? It was fun. The singer of the band back then was a guy called Patrick – someone nobody remembered anymore but maybe it was still worth mentioning.  
So Mikey watched Pete and as he saw his best friend being all caught up in the music and handling the strings of his bass as if it would be nothing Mikey Way finally realized something. Let’s talk about the exact moment Mikey Way realized that he was in love with Pete Wentz. Because this moment could be exactly named. It was when Pete twisted his head towards the guy at the side of the stage and when he smiled at him like nobody had ever smiled at Mikey Way before.  
It was when Mikey saw the pearls of sweat run down Pete’s face and when the other bass player quickly ran his fingers through his messy black hair in no slinky way at all but well, that was just the moment Mikey finally realized that Pete wasn’t just his friend. And that was the changing point.  
Patrick basically blew away the crowd because he was a really good singer and everybody realized that but Mikey only had eyes for Pete who didn’t notice anything of that. It was one of those nights that seemed to last forever but even those came to an end eventually.

Let’s skip to a point a few weeks later where Pete introduced his girlfriend Ashlee to Mikey. Let’s talk about how it was hate at first sight for both but how they still tried to get along with each other because of Pete. One couldn’t even name why they hated each other so much. For Mikey it probably was because of the fact that he was in love with his best friend and maybe Ashlee somehow realized that and was jealous. Not that she had a reason to be jealous because Pete certainly didn’t realize any of that.  
So, Pete was together with Ashlee and Mikey was alone for months until he eventually met Alicia. And Alicia was great. She was pretty and nice and everything a guy could’ve wanted in a woman. And Mikey thought that she maybe could become his woman eventually. He wanted to love her so desperately but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.  
Then there came the day where Pete and Alicia moved to an apartment together. When his best friend was gone Mikey was wandering through the rooms that now seemed so alienated. Mikey entered Pete’s room but the only thing left there his best friend’s bed because obviously the latter would now share one with his girlfriend. How much Mikey hated her.  
Mikey threw himself into the sheets that were fortunately still on there and then he started to do something he never did. Mikey Way started to cry like a teenage girl with a broken heart because a broken heart hurt at every age and it was even worse when the other person didn’t know what they had done. And it was the worst when one had a girlfriend themselves.  
Let’s talk about how Alicia eventually entered the apartment because Mikey had been kind of forced to give her the spare key and how he saw Mikey lying on Pete’s bed and how he just knew. A few days later Mikey and Alicia were officially broken up. Not that Mikey cared because he had someone else to cry over already.  
Mikey started to sleep in Pete’s bed all the time but soon enough his scent vanished from the sheets. At some point it wasn’t because of Pete’s dominant scent anymore, it was just the thought that Pete used to sleep there that made Mikey maybe one percent happy.

Now, let’s skip to many, many years before when Mikey had still been a little boy and when the stupid cancer hadn’t taken his mother from his yet. Gerard, Mikey and their parents were living a normal life and here has to be mentioned that it really was normal as most people defined the word. They were middle class people with two children and with no major problems. That was all before. Before life turned out to be not so normal anymore.  
So, Mikey was six at this moment and Gerard was nine but acting as if he was much more mature. The older brother had just started with middle school and was acting as if he was something better than Mikey. Nobody cared that the latter had started his first school year in general that year.  
Mikey Way was frightened because of school. He hated it because all the other kids where so different and even at his age he felt like he would never fit in. Gerard also wasn’t the most popular person in school, in fact it was quite the opposite. And years later both brothers still were the losers of every school they attended.  
But that was okay. Mikey and Gerard were fine with that because they had each other. Let’s talk about their relationship because it wasn’t one of two typical brothers. Sure, they were also fighting sometimes but generally their relationship was much deeper. Mikey and Gerard had started to make things up from an early age on. They had spent hours and hours in their imaginary worlds not wanting to escape them because they had already realized when they were young that imaginary worlds where so much better than the reality.  
Let’s talk about how even years later when Gerard was a pubescent teenager he never rejected Mikey. Most older siblings usually did that at a certain age but Gerard didn’t. Even when his only friend Ray came over Mikey and Pete were always allowed to hang with them and sometimes they made up things together. Because it was so much fun.  
So it’s pretty obvious that Mikey and Gerard had had a decent childhood overall. Sure they hadn’t been popular but who needed that because the connection they had was certainly more important than a hundred fake friends.

And now we’ll skip to one of the worst days in both Mikey’s and Gerard’s lives. One shouldn’t say that it was the worst day because there were so many bad days to follow but that was all a subjective thing. Let’s just skip to the day their mother had died.  
Everyone had known that it would happen soon because she had been sick for so long. Everyone had known that it would be over soon but when it really was everyone also thought that it was way too fast. It was a random Tuesday in the middle of July and Mikey was sitting in a boring chemistry class he didn’t understand anything of when a teacher came in and called him.  
And it was probably when Mikey saw the expression in his teacher’s face that he knew that his mother was dead. He waited until he was home and then he finally started to cry rough and ugly but that was how the reality was.  
Let’s talk about Gerard who didn’t even let himself cry because he was drowning all his sorrows in alcohol in pills in the bathroom. Let’s talk about how this was the changing point of everything because while Gerard had also had problems before now he absolutely didn’t want to live anymore.  
Let’s talk about how Mikey constantly rejected Pete because the only thing he wanted to do was lay in his room and listen to music until his ears would secede. Both Way brothers had their own ways to mourn and certainly neither of them had been a great one. It was rather the exact opposite.

Let’s skip to another point maybe one year later where Gerard tried to kill himself. One could argue if it had been his intention or if it had only been by mistake but most people thought that it had been a suicide attempt. That’s something one’ll never know for sure.  
All tragic stories started by introducing a wonderfully normal day and that was also how this one had started. Really, it wasn’t too hot or too hot. It was a very appealing temperature. But nobody cared about the weather. So, Gerard was sitting in the bathroom as usual what nobody realized. Mikey was constantly listening to music and never noticed anything and their father was somewhere. So Gerard was as usual free to do whatever he wanted. And soon he would’ve been eighteen anyways.  
Gerard drank all the alcohol that was available at home which wasn’t much because the Way’s father liked to drink a little bit too much himself. But then Gerard drank the leftovers and he looked at all the pills in the cupboard. So many pills that had either belonged to his mother and were still there one year later or they were there for other reasons. But really, probably eighty percent of the pills had belonged to his mother.  
At this point in his life Gerard had already been an expert for taking just the right dose to accomplish what he wanted so it is still something to argue about if he had intended to die or if he maybe just once didn’t pay attention.  
Gerard was already unconscious when his brother entered the bathroom and was surprised to find that it was open. Maybe Gerard had forgotten to lock up and maybe that was the thing that had changed his life eventually. So, the younger brother entered the bathroom to find his older brother laying in the bathtub but there wasn’t any water inserted. Instead he was just lying there wearing all of his clothes and appearing to be asleep.  
Mikey knew that he really could’ve been asleep but he knew even better that he probably wasn’t. Because normally Gerard didn’t leave the door unlocked. He always locked up and maybe the fact that he hadn’t this time meant that he wanted to be saved. Maybe this was a desperate cry for help. At least that was what Mikey probably hoped even though he didn’t know how to help his brother because he was too messed up himself.

And now let’s skip back to the initial situation where Pete Wentz was laying in the bathtub like Gerard had been laying in a similar room years ago. Let’s look at Mikey who has to experience the same all over again. And let’s talk about Gerard who wasn’t there anymore. Let’s talk about how the older Way brother has been dead for almost eleven years and how the only person Mikey still loved was possibly dead too. What was the reason to be alive if everyone you loved was already dead?

Let’s skip back to the day Gerard had died. It hadn’t been the one that was described earlier because no, the first time he had overdosed he had survived it. He had been put to a mental institution but it was forlorn. There were people who didn’t want to be saved and Gerard certainly was one of them.  
Gerard Arthur Way had died on an April 8th, one day before his birthday and when it had turned midnight Mikey and his father had started to drink together. The older man hadn’t cared that his son wasn’t of legal age yet. He never had so why should he then that they had the best reason to get drunk.  
So father and son drank because of Gerard. Because brother or son was dead or maybe they drank for the live he never had. Mikey didn’t cry and neither did his father. Maybe they had both reached the point where they didn’t care about anything anymore. Maybe Mikey was finally able to die too. Because apparently everyone was dying. He could’ve been the next.  
One week later Gerard was buried but there were just six people attending the ceremony. The little group of mourners consisted of Mikey and his father in the front, Ray and his mother second and Frank and Pete third. Nobody else cared about the Way’s and maybe it was better like that. Maybe it was better that everyone who was there had really cared about Gerard. Well, maybe excluding his father.

And finally let’s skip to the initial situation again where Mikey was standing outside of the bathroom and looking at the paramedics who heaved up Pete’s body to put him on a stretcher. Let’s talk about how fragile Pete looked. Pete who was probably already dead because we knew how it was working already. Mikey Way was never lucky enough that people he loved actually survived. Everyone around him died sooner or later. He had tried to repress it for so long because Pete had been a part of his life for so long but then even he was being taken away from him.  
Mikey was the cause of all the bad things happening around him. Now that wasn’t true of course but after losing so many people one couldn’t feel any differently.  
The paramedics left the room and nobody noticed Mikey who would maybe be the next victim of alcohol, pills and self-destruction. Mikey just wanted to do the same as Pete had done, as his had brother had done, because maybe that was the only thing that would actually make people feel better.  
Death had always scared him because nobody knew what would follow after the life was over but it had even more fascinated him because it was such a big mystery. People were always wondering what exactly would happen after one died but why didn’t they just tried if they were so curious.  
Let’s talk about Patrick whom we had talked about earlier and who just so happened to enter the apartment in this moment where Mikey was completely lost. Let’s talk about how the younger guy immediately knew what had happened because it certainly had happened before. Dying wasn’t as easy as one thought because both Gerard and Pete needed to try it more than just one time.  
Most importantly, let’s talk about the fact that Patrick Stump has probably been the person who has saved Mikey Way. The younger guy convinced him to drive to the hospital because Pete wasn’t dead yet, right? They went downstairs and Mikey sat down on the passenger’s side of Patrick’s car being there physically but not mentally. Mentally he was somewhere completely else. Maybe already dead.  
So Mikey and Patrick arrived in the hospital asking about Pete Wentz who was actually called Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third and the woman at them confused because she probably thought that they were all fancy people. But they weren’t they were everything but fancy actually.  
Let’s talk about Pete who was laying in the hospital bed slowly waking up because he wasn’t dead. No, he was still alive even after he had tried killing himself for the second time. It wasn’t that easy. It really wasn’t.  
Gerard had managed to do it at the second attempt so why hasn’t he. Why was he still alive? Pete looked around the room. White walls, white sheets, white curtains. Everything was white in hospitals and therefore was the complete opposite of his black soul.  
Pete had started to hate hospitals years ago. But not for the reason why most people hated them. Pete didn’t hate hospital because he connected them with a tragic death. For him it was quite the opposite because he connected them with how they constantly saved one from the desired death even though one didn’t want to live anymore. Doctors always wanted to save everyone and maybe they managed to fix the external wounds at some point but they couldn’t fix the internal wounds that easy. Because that process involved the will of a person and if the latter wasn’t there there was barely a thing they could do.  
Pete didn’t have the will to live anymore. He had long ago lost it when Gerard had died and when his father just didn’t even though this had been the only thing he had wanted. At this point the fucker was already dead for years but he had left his traces on Pete. Traces that would always stay there.  
Now his father wasn’t the main reason for his misery, no it was far more complex. The reason why Pete didn’t want to live anymore was so much bigger because it consisted of so many things. But all in all Pete just didn’t see why he was supposed to stay on this earth any longer.  
And then Mikey Way entered the room looking as dead inside as Pete felt. But the look on the younger man’s face wasn’t accusatory. Mikey looked at him with such an apprehension that Pete actually wondered if they maybe both wanted the same.  
Neither of them talked because neither knew what to say. What was one supposed to say after a suicide attempt? And even worse, what was one supposed to say when both people in the room wanted to die so desperately? No word could’ve been able to express anything real. Pete and Mikey already knew each other for so long that they both knew that.  
Let’s talk about how Mikey suggested to get out of the white room that looked like people would probably imagine heaven. But even heaven had its imperfections. The walls were rather grey and there were stains all over it. The curtains where ripped apart at some steads and there were occasional holes in the sheets. Nothing was perfect and maybe perfection wasn’t perfect either.

One more time, skip to the evening of that day where Pete and Mikey are back in their apartment. Everything still looks the same because apartment don’t just change like that but nothing feels the same. Because everything has changed but somehow also nothing has changed because they had done that before. It had happened before, so often that it wasn’t anything new for either Pete or Mikey.  
Pete had never wanted to get used to something like that but then they were standing there and they had used that point long ago. And maybe Pete was finally okay with wanting to die.  
He went to the bathroom looking at the bathroom, he inspected the bathtub where he had almost died hours before but he didn’t feel shocked. He didn’t feel anything, he just knew that he wanted to try it again. All these mental institutions where people were offered help wouldn’t help him anymore because Pete knew exactly what was wrong with him. The thing was just that he didn’t want to change it.  
The society didn’t want to accept that there were people who didn’t want to be saved. Everybody wanted to save the world but nobody realized that that wasn’t possible.  
Let’s talk about how Mikey also entered the bathroom and how they both looked at the Ativan that was still lying at the edge of the bathtub. Let’s talk about how they both got the same thought and wondered how they hadn’t before. Because it was just the perfect idea.  
Pete and Mikey were the last persons in each other’s lives that still mattered to the other so they thought about doing it together. And maybe they would both be successful this time. Maybe they would be able to do it together. They had so many pills in their apartment. Pills and alcohol and everything one needed.  
Let’s talk about how Mikey entered the kitchen to grab two vodka bottles and how Pete searched for more pills. Maybe if both of them would take one package each as fast as they could it would work. Maybe this time.  
They met each other in the living room because wasn’t that a more comfortable place to die together? Mikey told Pete that he loved him and Pete told Mikey the same but neither of them knew that they both meant it in a non-platonic way. Pete Wentz and Mikey Way had always been in love with each other but they just weren’t meant to be together. At least not in this world.  
Let’s look at them how they nodded at each other as if they were just agreeing on a meeting point. But then they each took a package of the Ativan. They opened it together and gulped down all the pills. And then they washed them down with the alcohol until neither of them realized what they were doing anymore.

Let’s skip one last time to a point one month later where both Pete and Mikey were dead. They had finally accomplished what they had wanted to do. Let’s hope that they were happy wherever they were at this point because this world – this live – had never been the right thing for them. It had always been against them so why shouldn’t the thing that came after this life make them happier.  
It was a comforting thought even though there wasn’t anyone who needed to be comforted because nobody cared. Nobody cared when the bodies had been found in the apartment and nobody cared when they were buried next to each other – just two more people who wanted to escape this world so desperately and who had eventually managed to do it together finally united in death.

And now we won’t skip anywhere anymore because there’s nothing more to be told. And we’re all still stupid and desperate and alive.


End file.
